Wishing comfort and joy to one and all

IMG_Xmas
Originally uploaded by writerinresidence

this Christmas...

...and the time and space in the day to relish
a spot of silence and contemplate the joyous miracle borne
unto the world!

Noel!
Noelle

Testing the boots

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Originally uploaded by writerinresidence

At this point, we had no idea we still had a couple of hours of trekking...

Flashback 2007: New Digs

 

Flashback 2007: Tagaytay

 

Flashback 2007: Highschool Reunion

 

Flashback 2007: Panning Rice in Sing

 

Flashback 2007: Hanoi

 

Flashback 2007: Bali Trip

 

From the treetops

As it happens, we had nothing scheduled today. No errands. No classes. No social doings. It was glorious to sleep in and have a lazy breakfast and pad around in our pajamas, just puttering around. When eleven o'clock rolled around, we decided to get ou and do something physical. C said, "You don't mean hit someone, right?"

We decided to kill two birds with one stone and break in our Switzerland boots by going for a trek at McRitchie and doing the famed treetop walk. K was reluctant - she had done this already. I was somewhat game. The menfolk were eager. So we set off in our gear and caps. The day was surprisingly sunny yet cool. When we entered the forest trails it was 1:00. There were sightings of flying squirrels and monkeys. We had braved the heights of the treetop bridge. We had trekked by streams on trails of rock and mud. The boots held up. And so did we. There were many discussions. There were many jokes told. We sang excerpts from Once on this Island and Sponge Bob Square Pants. We did multiplication tables. There were breaks for water and gingerbread cookies. There was a pebble in one boot and a bit of a tantrum from C who didn't like us singing because it "scared away the nature."

Two and a half hours and apparently 7 kilometres later, we emerged, hot and sweaty but feeling virtuous. Virtuous and starving. Fittingly, that's when it began to drizzle. We climbed into the car and went for a very late lunch at Billy Bomber Burgers in Marina Mall - in our hiking gear and boots and all.

Just another day to be grateful for...of family fun this Christmas season.

Joke on the run

Christmas vacation. We've been watching DVDs. First Akeela & The Bee which I thought was great. Yesterday, we rented and Karate Kid and Clash of the Titans. And then there's Boggle in the evenings - the kids are pretty good, and will sometimes even beat T, on occasion.

And the runs by the canals continue - not every day but frequently enough. Today, K joined us. And C came up with a joke that I thought was pretty good.

Question: What did the Daddy cannibal say to his son, after they went for a morning run?
Answer: See, this is how you get a-head!

Oh the weather outside is frightful...

You would think we'd be used to this after eight years in Singapore - a grey, wet Christmas...

My daughter, the savvy fashion shopper

Sunday night inside a fitting room at Bebe in Vivo City...

ME: Does your Dad know you're with me.
K: Yes, I told him I was going to go to you. He said, 'You're going to Beh Beh,' - (Laughs). He doesn't know it's Beebe
(I laugh and try on a dress that's 70% off)

ME: Well?
K: I like it, but how much is it.
ME: It's $XX...
K: (shocked) What?!>!
ME: (sheepishly) But it used to be $XXX!
K: Hmmm, but how do you know they're not just saying that it used to be $XXX?

[Beat in which I think about this]

ME: Because they're not allowed to do that.
K: But what if it's just marketing?

[Beat in which I think about this]

ME: The first question is does it look good.
K: (Looks at me thoughtfully] It looks good.
ME: OK then. It's 70% off and it fts and it looks good and I need a Christmas dress...
K: It's your money...

My nine-year-old daughter walks away. I pause in the fitting room, wondering if it really is Beebe as I have no idea...

Mom & Son Run

We awoke early this Sunday to bond and run as only a mother and son can. Since I got a new pedometer, I gave him my old one. And that gadget was enough to get him excited about the exercise. woke him at 7:30, and we hit the road, walking over to the connector park by the creek, five minutes away.

The day was cool and bright and lots of people were out, which surprised me, considering it was Sunday. It was green and breezy and we managed to spot a number of colourful birds - one was blue with an orange bill, and there were a couple of cranes. "This is nice," my son murmured as though to himself.

At first, C was reluctant to do more than walk. "I can't run," he said, "I get tired..." So we broke it up into manageable bites. I told him, "Let's just sprint for 10 counts, and then walk, and then sprint again for ten..." He was amenable, and by the time we reached the end, we were running for 15 counts. We also managed three sets of 10 squats. He clocked in 5780 steps - about 3.5 km - 40 minutes of walking. I was very proud of him and he was very proud of himself. So much so that he's game to do it again tomorrow...

What can happen at 40

I'll admit, I was up late last night working and didn't turn in till 2am, so it could be that, too. But I awoke easy and fresh as a daisy to my daughter's bday greeting and a number of sms messages wishing me a happy day. Needless to say, I had to drag a greeting out of C - he who tried three times before he got it right (Goodmorning, Mama, I love you Mama, oh...Happy Birthday Mama). After doing the suburban wife thing and dropping T off at the train, I popped over to M's house where she made me her own version of the Popover Cafe breakfast and we hung out till eleven.

Drove back home to change as T was taking me to lunch. Decided on a white blouse and proceeded to have a rather happy afternoon - a festive birthday lunch, Christmas shopping on Orchard Road, various errands and coffee with a friend outside Borders Bookshop. Last but most important thing on the agenda before dinner out with the kids was to attend 6pm birthday mass at St. Ignatius. I was even early. When I knelt down on the pew before communion, I happened to look down at myself and noticed something odd with my sleeves, in fact, with my entire top.

All of a sudden, the blood rushed to my head and I was flushed with the most embarrassing realisation. Pretty much the entire afternoon, I had been wearing my nifty white blouse - inside out.

This does not bode well...but it was a happy day, anyway...

I've learned my lesson...or have I?

Three weeks. A total of 46 periods.
And now it's over, and I have learned that teaching just isn't my thing.

The other day, an administrator from a business school asked me if I would be interested in teaching Business Communications. "This would be different," he said. "Your students won't be in high school. They'll be motivated adults. And it would be just one class a week."

Hmmmm.

Not so kiddie observation

Upon hearing Carly Simon's You're so Vain for the first time, K pipes up from the backseat:

"This is a dumb song. Of course, the song is about him - she's singing to him!"

Speaking of which, K also proved her pipes and got selected to be part of the Singapore Children's Choir. Her audition piece was "Happiness" from You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown

From the canteen uncle

As I was buying my daily bottle of green tea, I fell into conversation with the canteen uncle. He asked me how I was doing. I told him.

"You know I was a teacher, also. In 1962. They paid me $350 a month. I gave up after three months."

Lessons at School

I accepted a spot of school relief teaching, substituting as instructor for as yet, unhired English teachers. There is a 7th grade class of Japanese and Korean non-English speakers reading 2nd grade English. There is a 9th grade class whose members shuffle in to the classroom but whose eyes glaze over at my every utterance. And there is an angry eleventh grade class who insist on delving into their own irrelevant opinions when they are asked specific questions about an assigned text that they have not really paid attention to. It is thankless and exhausting work, and while I am able to do it, every fibre of my being reacts against it.

It is fitting also that during this period, what is is playing in my DVD player are episodes from Seasons 1 and 2 of Beverly Hills 90210.

It will be over soon.

Easy like Sunday morning - not!

After a late 3am night, we roused ourselves early as we needed to have the kids at the church for the Christmas pageant rehearsal. Trust K and C to actually want to be in the church Christmas pageant.

Unfortunately, even after more than three reminders and a goodly number of threats, C was being stubborn and moving on his own personal time. So what did we do? We left him. And when he realised it, he wailed at the top of his lungs loud and long - and we heard it in the lift on our way down, and even when we landed. In fact, a number of neighbors looked up wondering what was going on. Big sis K took pity on her brother and rode back up to pick him up.

He whimpered throughout the car ride. And in unspoken agreeement that I suppose comes with 15 years, T and I spent the trip talking as though he wasn't there, relating anecdotes about all the people we know who were left behind - on vacations, at school, etc...just because.

These are the lessons that have to be taught.

-o-

For the first time, we had ourselves a spot of brunch at Jones Grocers in the new, hip complex on Dempsey Road, enjoying eggs and sour dough toast alongside our chosen sides of bacon, sausage and sauteed mushrooms. To drink, we had fresh apple juice, iced chocolate for the kids and flat whites for us. Couldn't resist the grocery and bought German salami, Australian back bacon and a loaf of the sour dough. Unbeknownst to me, T also got us a batch of rocky road marshmallow nougat. I resisted the temptation to make purchases from "the largest fromagerie in Singapore" - as we just stocked our cheese section the day prior. But the whole time, I kept thinking about how this kind of approximated our long ago forays at Zabar's and that fateful day in 1991 when I first tasted prociutto and cherry cheese struedel.

-o-

The other high point was dropping in at the Red Sea Gallery next door and finding a gathering of large and beautiful Dao Hai Phongs - my absolute favourite Vietnamese painter. While I was disappointed to learn that he had actually had an exhibition there in September and I missed it (goodness knows my head was buried in work), I was happy to pick up the book so now, I have it to go alongside my "New Town"...

What can I say; it made me very happy.

Making a good home

As we are going through the stress and mayhem of setting up a new household in new premises, this idea keeps running through my mind; the idea and the way the idea is most often associated with being an exemplary woman. An exemplary woman is a nurturing wife and mother who makes a good home for her family.

I know many exemplary women in this way. But I do not see myself as one of them - not in this particular way. Nevertheless, I believe I do "make a good home" for my family. I am not Martha Stewart or Nate Berkus. I am not a domestic goddess. I don't know my carpets from my drapes, but I know what I like when I see it. I do not have all the right kitchen cutlery or flatware, but I know my way around a kitchen and can devise pretty good eats when I choose. I am not obsessive about the house and its accessories - but I do enjoy my home. Is it possible then to make a good home, without actually making a good home? I like to think so.

- o -

The lights guys came yesterday, and we were talking about changing the fixtures. We wanted to change our living and dining room lights to energy saving, but we were told we couldn't with the existing mechanism.

"You can, but you have to call the company in to reprogramme the light switches. But then you'd have to kill the dimmer function, which many people like. It's good for setting a scene..."

I told him. "I don't need a dimmer to set a scene. I can make scenes without it..."

What's happening in the village

Is it me, or have prices gone up at Holland Village?

Last night, we popped in for a Mexican dinner and ice cream only to find that our long-ago favourite Chachacha was serving dishes that were significantly reduced in size, almost by a third, T and I estimated. Plus, gone were the generous sidings of salad, refried beans and salsa that usually accompanied each entree. The food was still of acceptable quality though it was hard to focus on that because the service was definitely spotty in places. We were disappointed as it had always been a family haunt. I guess it's true; you can't go home again.

For dessert, we braved a new ice cream spot - COLD ROCK - which essentially involves you paying somebody to painstakingly smush various toppings into two scoops of ice cream - at a hefty dollar per topping. That racks up to about 5 dollars for the smallest "kiddie" serving, and includes only one topping. In my case, as I chose peanut M&Ms;I got exactly eight.

Sigh.

When we tell K that it's her bedtime...

...and she hasn't yet done all she wants to do, or perhaps she still feels there is more that she wants to do, though she doesn't quite know what, she says:

"What? But I don't feel fulfilled yet!"

How early the search begins...

Make sure this is not you

Someone who looks in the mirror and sees the person that she never ever wanted to be.

Let the chorva begin

I am inspired. Thanks to the swingiest sister in town, I have the push I need to do what it is I am certain I am meant to do for the rest of my life.

Idea for fiction

There's absolutely nothing wrong with a man having madonna-whore complex, for so long as he is able to find a woman who is perfectly happy being a madonna and would never deign to be a whore. There are, after all, such women.

Is it reasonable to believe a well-adjusted man with the madonna-whore complex would recognise that his whoring days are over and be quite able to live all his days making chaste and honourable love to his pristine princess?

Finding Halloween

K and C are big fans and I'm not sure how they got hooked on it so intensely. They are a distant cry, it seems to me, from D, M and E who decided this year that they would sit Halloween out and just go out and buy their favourite candy.

K was one and a half and C was six months old when they first donned identical pumpkin costumes and we all hopped into a car to do trick or treating within the walls of the Corinthian Gardens subdivision - that's Manila-style.

We then moved to Singapore - and that year, they had two Halloween events. At the first K was a rabbit and C was a cat. At another, they were Woody and Buzz from Toy Story. The following year, Snow White and a Power Ranger. Then Superman and Wonder Woman. But it takes certain cunning to find Halloween in Singapore, a country which is decidedly un-American. You have to find it in pockets.

For years, we relied on a rather large American enclave in one of the posh multi-towered condominium complexes on the East Coast. Due to the fact that we had friends in the building, we lucked into that party bringing food to a potlock supper that would culminate a mad rush and tearing up and downstairs or via the elevator to the various apartment units that were taking part. I imagined it to be the kind of hi-rise halloween that you might have in cities like Manhattan.

And then we hit the motherload in Woodlands, the neighborhood that surrounds the Singapore American School. As it's close to the border of Malaysia, it's a major trek from our part of the city. But for so long as you have company, it's worth it once you get there.

This year, we dragged the M's from the kids school. Now here was a family as unconventionally American as we are. Mother M grew up in Montana and left the US for Paris as soon as she finished college. Her children are French American - though they haven't lived in the US for any extended period of time. After spending the last five years in South Africa, they were starved for Halloween. So we went together. My Halloween-hungry kids and hers to the strangely surreal Woodlands neighborhood that is practically a scene from ET. The roads were dense with trickortreaters of every age. In the spookily dressed houses, the candy givers were sometimes Filipino maids, sometimes Chinese owners but most of the time, they were American expats all dressed up in costume, complete with cocktail or wine glass in hand - offering up their measured amounts of candy, lest there be nothing left by 7pm.

We made good time and had a good run, filling our plastic pumpkins with sweets and then chowing down on KFC at the community centre. Needless to say the two witches and the two black goblins were happy Halloween campers.

Their mothers were happy too.

Stay in the room

Marital troubles. It appears we have come to that age where this is more the norm than the exception. I am hearing more and more stories of surprising break-ups, infidelities or just plain old vanilla disillusionment. I guess I understand. Nobody tells you how hard it is - and really, they should. That way, at the very least, you're prepared.

In a recent Oprah episode, Jennifer Aniston showed a clip of a short film she had directed for a series sponsored by Glamour based on real women's stories. In the scene, an elderly man sat in a hospital room,holding the hand of his wife who was in a coma. A nurse on duty marvelled at the longevity of this couple's marriage.

"45 years. We should all be so lucky."

The old man replied, "Luck had nothing to do with it."

"Excuse me?"

"Making a marriage last has nothing to do with luck. It has to do with just staying in the room."

It's a heartening thought. But it does take a lot of work - and sometimes, you need more than just sheer, dogged will.

For my part, I like to rely on two very simple things: sex and laughter - preferably in simultaneous doses.

Both are good focusing distractions that serve to remind you in small but powerful ways that life and the world are so much bigger than your problems.

Making a move

I can't believe I'm going through this again.

As we approach our eighth year in Singapore, we have come to another moving point. Blame it on the volatile and rather unique real estate market and the en bloc phenomenon. All things considered, I guess I can't really complain.

And yet the whole tedioous business of weeding and throwing things out, packing, sorting and arranging I find, not surprisingly, exceedingly stressful. Combine this with the even more detail-oriented fixing up and deciding on tile and paint and drapes and shelving, and I'd just as soon walk away from the whole situation.

Most women are not like me. Most women love it; they even thrive on it. They relish the choices - vacillate, ruminate, visualise and strategise. They consult, research and make detail-oriented decisions. Most women get a kick out of all of it.

As it turns out, here as well as in other situations, I am afraid I am once again simply not like most women.

Are you still the person you were in highschool?

Or perhaps a better way of putting it would be: how much of the person that you were in highschool remains in you today? I hazard a guess that the average adult still carries about 60 percent of her highschool self, personal baggage and all, whether or not she even realises it. And much of that dynamic continues to guide her present actions.

Which in itself wouldn't be so bad assuming that you liked yourself when you in highshool. I did. Did you?

One way to do it...

All the years T had of schooling were at the Ateneo, with the exception of his MBA. As for me, I never had formal instruction in catechism until I started high school at St. Theresa's college and of course, the Ateneo which requires its students to take 18 units of theology, apart from its hefty 16 units of philosophy - which includes Philosophy of Religion. But my children, K and C aren't likely to have that chance. Now that they've both received the sacraments of reconciliation and commmunion, we are opting to ease them out of the formal catechism classes. Instead, T and I are undertaking to homeschool them every Sunday. Between the two of us, we felt pretty confident we would be able to give them a solid religious foundation.

Today, we tackled the Sunday gospel - the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector at the same time we gave them a brief on structure of the Liturgy of the Word. The kids were attentive and had much to say. In just over 30 minutes, we did a lecture, discussion and quiz, and finished in time for dinner of tuna burgers.

It sure beats dragging them to Saturday class.

Reconnections

Once again, I must marvel at the miracle of the internet, if only for the wonderful way it brings me back in touch with people from many lives ago, as far back as the first grade. It seems fitting that all this reconnecting takes place just a few weeks after seeing New York-based C and her kids after not having seen each other for
six years.

First, despite the fact that FACEBOOK irritates me, I am grateful that my gradeschool classmate M was able to find me. She, who I had not seen since we all graduated in the 7th grade at good old Maria Montessori Cooperative School. M is/was/is one of those children who look ageless - at age 10. Back then, she already had a womanly face as well as a good measure of womanly wisdom. She had a great spray of black hair, every strand of it sprang out in finely coiled kinks and her eyebrows were already arched in perfect parentheticals.

Today, she has a blog to keep her folks back in the Philippines updated on her own little family - a husband and an adorable daughter - now living in Seattle. I was heartened to see her familiar face - seemingly ageless - and enchanted to see her baby girl who looks very much like her, and yet not.

Like me, she turns 40 at the end of the year. We have exchanged emails - summarising our life stories, which are still intensely and mutually fascinating, even in their very broadest strokes. And as I read between her lines, I still have a very strong sense of the person that she is - how she still has so much of the girl I used to know, the one who could braid her hair in a manner of seconds, sew like a goddess of domesticity and sing along to Air Supply, and look, even at age 13, disapproving and school-marmish at many of my childish antics. It is good that she found me. One of the little gifts this month has had to offer.

But that isn't even the end of my story. Just days away from our mini-online reunion, I was sitting at the PC and who should pop in to IM-chat with me but D. The story of D is also an amazing one. When I was in the first grade, D was in kindergarten and was "best friends" with my cousin J. Then she got moved up to first grade, and we became fast friends. She was very fair and sandy-haired due to Caucasian grandparents, and we were such good friends that I even invited her to spend my birthday with me and my family at my house. Interesting that I don't recall specific conversations, though I remember quite clearly the spirit and the authenticity of our friendship - how we always had so much to talk about, so much to share. Our friendship lasted just one year, as she soon moved to the US, and we lost touch completely.

In 2003, I found her through her architect cousin, and after the initial thrill of reconnection, we have maintained "chatting" contact. Anyway, D now lives in Sunnyvale - she is a scientist in Silicon Valley. She too has a husband and a daughter.

When she popped up, I told her about M, whom she also remembers. Perhaps they will get together soon. But D also wanted to tell me something. How she had been thinking about me recently. I asked her why.

She asked me if I recalled the movie Sky Riders. "Don't you remember that movie?" D asked me. I had to admit I was drawing a blank. She continued, "It's about these hang gliders, who save these kidnapped kids held for hostage in a cave?" The description stirred a very faint bell. I told her it sounded vaguely familiar.

"You told me to watch that movie."
"I did?"
"You told me it was a great movie and at the time, it was showing at Rizal Theatre, and you told me to ask my folks to watch it."
"Back in first grade?"
"Yes. It is a great movie. The hang-gliders make a daring rescue."

I waited, not quite sure what the point was.

"I saw that movie because you said it was great, and it got me interested in hang gliding. It's the reason I took hang-gliding lessons."

"You took hang-gliding lessons? You mean as an adult?"

"Yes.

"And have you rescued anybody?"

"No, but I did marry somebody. I married my instructor and we went flying in the Andes mountains, and that's why our daughter is named Andes."

I started to get it.

"Marrying someone is a kind of rescuing," I said.

"I just wanted to tell you that. And that I had thought of you. Because we just got a copy of Sky Riders"

I makes no real difference in the world to know this, not really. But I was glad D told me. It was yet another unexpected gift.

Good game

T invented it to make the traffic jam pass during the trip to the airport. Let's invent jokes, he said. One of us would give a topic and another of us would make a joke.

C: Cannibals
K: A little girl cannibal says, "Mom, can we ask my friend Janice for dinner?" Mom cannibal says, "Sure. Why don't you ask Jessica, too?" Little girl cannibal says, "We already had her for dinner."

[I thought this was pretty good and she made great time, too.]

K: Elephants
M: A wife elephant makes her husband breakfast in bed - a tray of peanuts. But she spills it all over the bed. The elephant husband says, "Tusk Tusk Tusk."

But it was T's joke that got C laughing all the way till immigration.

T: Santa Claus came out to find his sleigh hitched to 12 elephants. He is mystified. He turns to his elves who come out of the Clause house naked except for their shirts. Then he yells: Not elephants! Elf pants!!!

C had some good ones too, but we suspect they came from one of his joke books...

The facts of life

My children now know the facts of life. Funny. Late last year, K asked me and I told her everything. I told her woman and a man's body fit together like perfect pieces in a jigsaw puzzle, and in this way, the man is able to plant a seed in the woman's body. She did not seem at all mystified by this, so I thought that was that. Today, we're walking up the stairs and she mentions reading a chapter in a science book that we apparently own - on how babies are made. She tells me she read it and now everything is clear. I said, what do you mean, it wasn't clear when I told you about it? She said, "Yeah, the jigsaw puzzle. But you didn't say what parts. I mean, I was thinking it might be the arm pits." I had to laugh.

Of course, that got C asking, so T told him straight out. "The daddy and the mommy get together and hug really tight, and the daddy's penis goes into the mommy's vagina and the seed gets planted." Non-plussed, C did not blink an eye. Then he piped up, "How does the baby get out, then?" I answer. "Most of the time, the babies come out through the mommy's vagina, but sometimes, the doctor can cut open her stomach and the baby gets out that way."

And that's when they said, "Eeeeeeew." Go figure.

Sidetrip Home for Fun and FOOD

There were no plans for this trip, but things fell together quite nicely and we made a quick getaway home. Two separate nights in Manila bookended a three night, four-day trip to the beautiful Bohol - which is now officially my favourite place in the Philippines. The first night we consolidated families and had dinner at the always delicious CAFE BOLA - the brainchild of cuisinartiste Gaita Fores, the little bistro specialises in Pinoy comfort food. And a comfort it was, indeed.

I gave up my usual Ceaser salad with bagoong balayan and went for two items on the specials board: Lechon Kawali and Kang Kong salad - a sparkling medley of crispy roasted pork bellies atop freshly steamed morning glory, onions and tomatoes, lightly tossed with garlic-laced vinegar. But I didn't stop there. I also ordered something the chef christened Fiesta rice - a cake of fried garlic rice topped with equal rows of chopped salted egg, smoked tinapa, tomatoes and chicharon. No surprise, every bite was heavenly.

The next morning, we hopped aboard Cebu Pacific, which was surprisingly painless and wonderfully on time and flew to Bohol. The first day was easy - just a day spent on the beach - with both meals had at various restaurants on the Alona cove strip. We spent the afternoon snacking on the sweetest lanzones imaginable - all the while digging our toes in the stand and viewing star fish. Dinner was at a turo turo - where friends V and C pointed at various things we wanted grilled - pork barbecue, roaste pork, and squid - which we also had cooked in inky adobo style. And the veggie dish was fresh seaweed!

Second day was touristic - the blood compact first, and then the marvelous chocolate hills of Bohol. I told K and C that the hills were actually alien pods that will hatch in the future and the Philippines will be the first alien colony. From the hills, we drove to the Loboc River and had lunch on the riverboat - and after that, the tarsiers, which we fed with beetles. The final stop was at the marvellous Bee Farm - but rather than take the bee tour, we contented ourselves with buying foodstuff from the bee shop. Honeyed peanut sticks, honeyed chocolate covered polvoron (it gives polvoron a delightfully irresistible edge) and my find of the day: Tableya dark chocolate honey spread - like nutella - but oh so much more. I bought not just one but two jars!

Dinner was a birthday party for little V at the Amorita resort where we stayed - and here, the food was amazing...I went totally pinoy with chicken-pork adobo - stealing a bit of K's sinigang na baka. The rest of the dinner party had the array of pasta dishes - alio olio, bolognaise pesto and fettucini carbonara - all more than competent. And for dessert - chocolate cake!

The following day, we rose at the crack of dawn to take a banca out to open sea to chase the dolphins. On realising that we weren't going to be in for breakfast, I ordered packed sandwiches to take on the boat with us - scrambled egg and bacon on toast with a dollop of mayonaise. The dolphins were truly amazing - and from there we went to the marine sanctuary at Balincasag island and had the best snorkellig experience. We were on the precipice of a coral reef, after all. So the sights were spectacular - the aggressive clown fish, the anemone, exquisite Angel fish, and below, schools and schools of some kind of flounder.

For lunch, we went to the Genesis Diving Centre Pizza House for delectable thin crust pizzas topped with salami, olives and onions - but not before M and I had massages on the beach, upon landing from the banca trip. As the children built their sand cities, we chatted and while snacking again on lanzones, finally ending up at sunset in the Amorita's infinity pool.

The grand finale meal was at the fabulous Ananyana resort - just 20 minutes away - and it was a fine dining extravaganza - M had pork ribs, T had a wonderful chicken dish, C had grilled swordfish - I stuck to pinoy and had the grilled bangus with mango salad - every morsel of which was sweet and tasty. Dessert? Chocnut ice cream!

On that last morning, after a buffet breakfast that included fried danggit, longanisa, rice, tomatoes, salted egg and champorado - plus hot tableya chocolate, we had a final bathe in the calm pool like waters of Alona beach - and then it was time to leave.

But the eating was not over. We met up with S quite fittingly at Shakey's - and had garlic and cheese thin crust pizza as well as manager's choice and chicken and mojos and sarsi. Then met with C and her brood and had a long catch up over dinner at the inimitable Via Mare! Binagoongan Baboy, lumpiang sariwa, sinigang and bibingka - plus guinumis for dessert!

Back in Singapore, I am now in the midst of detoxing for all the apparent and not so apparent reasons...but hey, every bite was worth it. I come from a wonderful country.

The Accidental Book Buyer and Multi-tasking Reader

...Unfortunately, when you go out on errands, the bookstores beckon and are just too tempting for words. For words...while ostensibly shopping for a birthday gifts for my sisters, I picked up:

With Bold Knife And Fork by MFK Fisher, the late food critic for the New Yorker.

Wallflower at The Orgy by Nora Ephron who I just saw on Oprah talking about the perils and triumphs of ageing.

Terrorist by my all-time favourite John Updike. Usually, I favour his short fiction, but I started this novel and got past the third page...so I picked it up.

And I still haven't finished Michel Faber's The Apple which is both pleasing and dismaying. His stories of whories makes me feel that my very recent and yet unpublished "Recollections of an Older Bride" is somewhat redundant. Sigh. I am halfway through the Smiley book on the novel - Gigigaga, go for it - it's fun as fun but willl also just get you out there buying more books. And who has the room?

So much to read, who has time to write?

Back in the heat of it

The trick to managing the absence of structured hours and a formal office lies in rising early.

After three days of sleeping in till the shameful hour of nine am ( I don't count getting up at ten to 7 for five minutes to say goodbye to the kids before they go on the school bus), I managed to get up with the kids and even have breakfast with them. After which, I checked emails, prepared snail mail and headed out the door for exercise, errands and a hodge podge of meetings.

Managed to take two yoga classes. One was a restorative yoga class which was a bit too gentle for my taste, foolishly causing me to feel myself equal to a HOT 1 class - that's 90 minutes in a heated room! Thanks to a new instructor, I was able to modify and adjust and as Burt Bacharach would say, make it easy on myself. I wouldn't have been able to that with H or J. It felt good, for sure, but it was rather dismaying to see that I've lost quite a bit of my yogabilities.

That's what stopping for eight months will do, I guess.

Big discoveries and small triumphs

The big one for the week is the new Jacob Ballas Children's Park at the Botanic Gardens. What a great play place for kids aged 0-13. We went for the second time today. I fetched the kids from school, right in time to see C in prime soccer play. I also had the chance to touch base with the mom of K's best friend at school, which was really nice. We packed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches - before you misunderstand, I mean two separate sandwiches, one peanut butter for C who eschews the classic combination and jelly solo for K who, believe it or not, does not like peanut butter, not even in chocolate. We went into the maze, into the sandbox playground and up into the tree house. We also did the bridge and the life-size nature puzzles. I must admit the kids are a little older for this park which I would say is perfect for ages 3-6, but they love it just the same. The other nice thing is right across the way is our track - so from there, we can quite easily go for a run or shoot some hoops for so long as we remember to bring the ball.

The small triumph is that my advice to C paid off. He's been going through tough times at school, much of it, it seems to me, is due to his intense desire to be liked by his peers. The result is he tries too hard and likely puts them off. It is something I understand and recognise all too well; it doesn't take much for me to flash myself back to third grade which was a constant tug-of-war of gal pals. I told him to change his tack - to withdraw and try out the people he doesn't know that well or even people he doesn't think he likes. I suggested he try going on his own more so he will discover that he enjoys his own company. I told him that when others see that he enjoys his own company, they will start seeking it - because he is fun to be with.

"You think that will work?" He asked, doubtful.

I told him to try it and see. And what do you know...it did. When he came over to me this afternoon, there was a little fellow was tagging after him who piped up to me, "C played a really good game! Good game C! I'll see you tomorrow, okay?" My son said, "See you tomorrow," and then grinned at me.

I am letting myself feel pretty good about that.

Tough Love

After two weeks of working at home - I've vowed not to say I'm not working, because what I'm doing? mothering while fitting in cash jobs and fiction is work - I'm rediscovering why I have worked at job these past few years.

It's because being a mother at home is the hardest job at all. It is. I always knew that cognitively but here I am facing it as a day-to-day reality, and to say that it is a challenge is putting it oh so very mildly. There is great satisfaction in getting dressed and leaving the house and having a day that's bisected neatly into morning, lunch hour, afternoon, coffee break and so on. A job gives you structure and everything fits nicely into slots. But mothering?

Mothering has no structure and my personality demands it while simultaneously not knowing how to create it. I know how to advise a junior writer and make suggestions about an article. I know how to collaborate with a graphic designer on a layout. What I don't know how to do is tell my daughter how not to get aggravated by my son when they are playing a game, even though he can be intensely aggravating. I don't know how to reprimand my children in a positive way so they get the lesson I am trying to impart without the anger and irritation. And I don't know how not to get worked up nor how not to lose my temper - worse, I don't know how to remember in time how to hold my tongue before seeing too late how a sharp reprimand has such a negative impact. Forget every day being a learning experience - every hour is.

Working at a job with defined skills was an easy escape. These days, I am confronted by the reality of not just having to raise my children, I am also having to raise myself. It takes a lot of love - and it's not romantic or easy. It's hard and steely bracing - even when it needs to be soft and yielding and understanding. Here it is, what I've been escaping - tough love and a job that I not only have to do, I have to remember I want to do because it will not just pay off in the long run, it will pay off with every hour and every day that passes.

On Page 1

I have a discount card for Kinokuniya and for Border's and for a long time, here in Singapore, that would pretty much cover it. But now there's Page One at Vivo City - and for some reason, it has all the books I want. Last Sunday, I stopped resisting the pull and gave in. I bought Jane Smiley's 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel. Am on the second chapter and it's just wonderful stuff. In the midst of it, I decided. It's time to stop looking at the novel. And start writing it.

On tasting carrots for the first time

after being prodded incessantly, my son said, grudgingly, "It has possibilities."

Best Press We've Had In A While

"Manila is a cool city."
- Quentin Tarantino in Manila for his new movie Dead Proof premiere

The Life of A Temp

I used to temp in the greatest city of all - the big Apple. It was the summer of 1991 - and all I had was one pair of hush puppies that I wore everday, to every job. I had one suit - a navy Auggie Cordero and one pair of black slacks. In the span of two and a half month, I worked at three different buildings. My first temp job was for a division at HBO in the HBO building, right by Bryant Park on 6th Avenue. That was just three days. Then I worked for a whole week at Saks on Fifth Avenue, in the marketing department. The last stint was something I was very thankful for because the personnel agency said they wanted someone for the rest of the summer, which meant that I wouldn't have to go traipsing around the city for anymore jobs. It was an assistant job for the Japanese company, ANA Hotels, which was on the third floor of one of the towers of the fabulous Rockerfeller Center. There were only four of us in the office, and I was in charge of taking reservations for the different hotels in Asia. It was a nice easy job, and in between, I wrote stories for the second year of my fiction program in Bowling Green. It was a glorious summer, and apart from the delights of the city, the best part was walking into an office - doing a job - and just like that... walking out again.

Here I am 18 years later - and it's time to temp again. Today I worked at one of the other publishing companies located in a building in Singapore I had never been in before. It was nice, but it wasn't the Rockerfeller Centre. The best thing?

Being able to walk in...and just like that, walking out.

My new favourites... H's....

...
City Hong Kong
It's big and bustling and busy and yet still so visitor-friendly. It's a great city for walking and exploring, shopping and (need I say it?)eating.
Restaurant Hu Tong, One Peking Road, Kowloon
Yum yum yum. First of all there's the view of the Hong Kong island skyline. And just as first of all - the food itself - work of culinary art. The crispy lamb - words fail me. And the way the sauce adds new dimension, further enhanced by finely minced garlic. The mere memory makes my mouth water. Fearing we would go overboard, we restricted ourselves to veggie dishes - the string beans in minced pork - always a hit. But the big surprise was the asparagus with salted fish, mainly because the salted fishes were not just tiny flakes but whole fish laid on a bed of bright green perfectly cooked asparagus. And then there was dessert - coconut ice cream with toasted coconut plus pear and white fungi...the a fitting end to a meal that can only be described as perfection.
Store H&M
It is a wonderful place to rummage through and not only do you find something you want every other minute - you find it in your size and at worth-it prices, too. PLUS - there's a cool kiddie section. I'm still a fan of Giordano Ladies - but I will always have a soft spot in my heart for H&M and am so glad it's in Hong Kong.

When do we go back to Hong Kong, that's my question...

Take 4

It's funny how my life seems to be cyclical. Circumstances have presented themselves in ample amounts so as to be enough to persuade me that the freelance life is once again the way to go. It feels different though this time. This time feels more right than it has before. Time will tell.

Brothers and Sisters

It's always interesting to watch a new TV drama series. L and M gave me Brothers & Sisters awhile back and I just started it. Unfortunately, Calista Flockhart still irritates me no end. I can't believe that a decade ago I was quite infatuated by her. Not only that, the plot - outwardly normal happy family besieged by dysfunction - is not especially unexpected. In fact,it's rather banal.But but but - two episodes in, I continue to watch. If only for Sally Field who plays the mother and who has lovely scenes. If only the writing improves and the plots become more inventive. We shall see.

The decision

She is made.

Plan

We are approaching that time when a decision has to be made. Only when you know what you want can you make it happen. So first things first. What do you want?

In another HDB flat in Toa Payoh

...you can spend a pleasant day with colleagues doing a shoot - that is, when you work at a magazine. As someone who began working in the industry at the text stage as opposed to the ground level - sourcing, styling, products, photography stage - I find this completely new and somewhat therapeutic. Don't get me wrong. I was always aware that shoots took place in theory, but was very rarely involved in them. It is funny to be starting now. Here such questions are posed as - "how should we shoot this little vial of lip balm?" Or "How can we make this cheesy packaging look somewhat better?". Of course, there is a photographer who will hopefully be as cheery, good-natured and companionable as the one we are working with today. Hopefully, you will be spending the time with colleagues whose company you enjoy or even who you genuinely like as individuals. And the goal is that you get as many of the pictures you need done and done well. It is interesting in that it's a break from the humdrum atmosphere of the office, you get to dress down and be relaxed yet still in "work mode" and with any luck, there will be good gossip and pizza. There are a lot worse ways to spend a working day.

And at the end of it - you see lovely pictures - which are of course, the heart and soul of this business. Worth a thousand words.

Oh where oh where

has this weekend gone? A lot of naps - thank goodness. A return to choir. Friday night dinner, ice cream and a bookstore browse. Ferrying kiddies to birthday parties. Lunch by the river. Household weeding and an early evening bite at the mall where T and I successfully resisted a Calvin Klein sale - and went for Japgelato instead. Today, it was all about sticking together in gray and rainy weather (Sorry Sash...but if it's any consolation, it's not like I would have bought anything either). What lies ahead? Decisions. That, and some good old fashioned exercise....

In a 3rd floor flat of an HDB complex in Serangoon

...at the hands of a Chinese woman who spoke as much English as I speak Mandarin, I had a manual lyphatic drainage massage, ear candling with Chinese herbs combined with a facial massage and naval candling combined with more tummy toxin drainage massage. Basically, I had to research post-treatment to even be able to list down what I had.

It was awesome.

First day

K and C have started school and they're happy as campers. Despite a very long day that began at 7am end had them reaching home by 5:30 (that's longer than some people's working day and they didn't even get the two hour lunch!) they were highly upbeat.

K said, with judicious equanimity, that it was "more fun" than her old school. C said it was..."the best day of my life."

Our hope is that this new environment with its diverse student body and its equally diverse teaching body combined with its significantly lower class-to-teacher ratios will only be good them, helping them to learn all they can learn, discover their full potentials and start the process of becoming the best versions of themselves.

While it was a tough decision to make, what with the various implications, not the least of which is financial - it feels today, the very first day, that we made the right one.

Not at all surprising

Just skimmed through a news item on Yahoo. There's apparently scientific proof that two species of human beings existed on this earth at the same time - one being more evolved and the other much less so.

Now why on earth should this surprise anyone, may I ask? I'm almost positive this continues to this day. It would account for quite a lot, I think.

Rediscovering Jean Webster

What is it about me these days that I am constantly seeking solace, comfort and pleasure in the books of my youth. Using K as a willing pretext, I've been rekindling the flame I had with Lucy Maud Montgomery and her Anne that too few young girls are reading these days, perhaps because we all live in such complicated times. Anne is too quaint and Green Gables is too old fashioned and Montgomery's prose will likely prove too flowery at for the modern day gal. Get to the point, I imagine them saying. Strangely, K is surprisingly compliant and even receptive - I guess reading aloud helps - I'll warrant I have winning diction.

My rally to modern women today is to acquaint themselves with the pleasures of LM Montgomery and discover the Anne books and the copious joys within. Even if it were just for the first three - Gables, Avonlea and Island.

But I digress. We were talking about Jean Webster.

Browsing in a Bangkok Kinokuniya, I chanced upon a new edition of Webster's Daddy Long Legs which is accompanied by another epistolary novel I was not even aware she had written: a much lesser known tome called Dear Enemy which spins off a Daddy Long Legs character in much the same way Frazier was spun off from Cheers or Lou Grant was spun off from Mary Tyler Moore Show. And it is another epistolary romance. Since my own aborted novel was partially epistolary - I take great interest in the re-reading of this and the first reading of the new. I felt like I had landed a goldmine, some buried treasure that I had not even known existed. Think for awhile what it would be like to see Starwars and go away never knowing that the sequels were even made.

The sheer pleasure of the fact alone is enough to make a girl giddy.

These novels were written in 1912 and 1914. Webster has wonderful turns of phrase and there is a richness and a texture in her language that is inextricably tied to the story she relates. It's brilliant. Brilliant and enviable.

Sometimes, out of nowhere...

...in the middle of my day... I get a call from my daughter K...and we talk for three to five minutes. Just a little chat. "Whatcha doing?" she will ask. Or sometimes, "Where are you?" And I tell her. And I ask her how her day is going and tell her how mine is. Then she says, "OK, bye bye, Mom... love ya!"

It's a solid pick-me-up that glistens like a seashell does on a sandy shore of humdrum, banal moments. It also makes me profoundly grateful for the person she is, and doubly glad that I live in this age of mobile phones.

A conversation between a mother and her eight-year-old son

Mother: Do you think you want Mom to stay at home and take care of the two of you?
Son: What do you want?
Mother: That's it. I don't know.
Son: Think about what you want. That's what's important.

Life strategies we tend to forget

• SPELL IT OUT. Regarding what you want or expect from other people - be specific. No one is going to read your mind, after all.
• TALK ABOUT IT. I tend to go a little overboard on this, perhaps because I feel very strongly about it. But talking helps. Pretty much anything can be resolved with a 30 minute conversation.
• WRITE IT DOWN. If it's clear on paper, it will be clear in your mind.
• FIND OUT WHAT THE OTHER PERSON FEELS. We can get very caught up in our own feelings, never once thinking what it's like in another person's shoes
• GIVE IT AWAY. If it's occupied the same place for over a year - you haven't touched it, you don't use it, and you don't need it. Give it to someone who does.
• SAY NO. There's no point in doing something that you don't want to do. If you can't figure out why you're doing it or what good will come of it, then do yourself a favour and just say no.
• MAKE TIME FOR HAPPY. Take time off and do things that will make both you and the people you love happy. Life is short, after all.
• EXPRESS YOUR FEELINGS. People don't do this enough - especially when they're feeling good. Tell someone you love, you love them.
• READ. Don't ever stop using those muscles. They were meant to be used and often.
• GET PHYSICAL. Whether it's exercise or lovemaking or doing something really basic like walking from one place to another. Use your body.
  

I saw Gandalf play King Lear

I must give credit where credit is due. The above was a T-shirt line from our friend TS - unfortunately, there was no actual T-shirt with this line. If there were, am pretty sure our little theatre-afficionado troupe last night would have stood in line to buy it. As for the show itself, it was quite absorbing. One of a number of the Bard's works I knew only very loosely - not having read it nor studied it nor seen it, until last night. As the firstborn in a family of three daughters, I had always meant to read it. But the closest I got was Jane Smiley's Thousand Acres which is actually a very different thing indeed, what with the incest and all.

It was surprising though. Always though that Shakespeare explained as well as portrayed human nature - and yet, King Lear does not do that at all. It is actually like a gun that never goes off - in the line, "What force of nature makes such harsh hearts?" Lear asks. And there is no ready answer for it it seems.

And after all that, it is a rather frightening thought - as it is also a frightening story. Positively Greek is perhaps another way to describe it, but also...mythic.

Some neat things about the performance: seeing Ian McKellen of course. But it strikes me that we paid for the wrong play. That we should have seen him doing Chekhov in The Seagull as opposed to Lear. Lear seems to me, too simple a role in its broadstrokes - in the way that Chekhov is not. Not that he wasn't a great King Lear. He was. But of course, my point is, he would be.

The other neat thing was the sets - the production itself.

And how, when Lear's fool was hung just before intermission - his dead body was taken down by the props people, just as members of the audience were standing up to get their refreshments and stretch their legs.

Coolness.

It's amazing

...what one can do just out of sheer will.

The funny thing about writing

The more you do it, the easier it gets. Today sped by like quicksilver, and yet, I managed to finish all my work and leave promptly as well as guiltlessly at six. For this new post I'm at, it's all about volume apparently. Over the past two weeks, I've written six full-length articles as well as a rather challenging six page section on new products for the body. Apart from this, I reworked three pieces from the inhouse staff and three pieces from outside freelancers. I have discharged my editorial duties and now, the special project assignments are about to begin. It's hard not to feel smug and satisfied. But the question remains - how long will it be possible to do this? Unfortunately, only I can answer that...and the answer seems to change with every day that passes.

It was a pleasure to go home early and have nothing hanging over my head though. Instead, I changed and headed to the track for six rounds. It seems running is just like writing - and I know I'm not the first to discover this either. The more you do it, the easier it gets.

The Return of Badminton

I've been missing it so much. And despite my requests on various lists, there were no takers for forming a new group. And every group I do know of is completely full up. So I stuck my neck out and looked, as it were, in my own back yard. The office.

It was easier than I expected. Send an email. Get the numbers. Book the courts and voila! We played for an hour last Friday - and this evening, we played for two hours.

If you build it, they will come.

Flying By

It's a little bit frightening how the days are flying by. Wasn't it just Sunday, and now, here we are again? The kids have read three of the Harry Potter books (I haven't even read one). K is now on book 5 and C is on book 4. I am also the only one in my family not taking Tae Kwon Do. So that makes two things that everyone else has done but I haven't. I did manage to run six times this week and make it in to a Power 1 class, so not all was lost. Work is absorbing. Not just one but two new magazines, and another one in the works - specifically my works.

Wasted a lot of time this week finisheing up the 3rd season of Grey's Anatomy which for me has started getting completely bonga. As JZ says, bobo na, tanga pa. The worst episode was the one with the ferry accident - so many needing medical attention, and the heroine who is now just plain annoying, falls into the water and drowns and needs the entire surgical unit to attend to her. Good grief. I truly regret the time I spent.

Sigh. For a productive tomorrow. Mandarin. Getting into the new house and taking photos and measurements. Prepare for moving out. To look forward to? Badminton on Friday... hopefully, this week goes as quickly as last.

Fitting it all in

Exercise and eating right, especially when it's for the entire family, requires an almost hyper-awareness.

Or maybe, it's just hyper to begin with. Saturday, we got K and C up first thing in the morning, even before breakfast for a run on the track. The kids did two rounds, T did four and I ploughed through my six. But while I did that, they played dodge ball - and kept the movement. Interestingly, we tried something different at our usual Pepperoni pizza haunt dinner, cutting down our usual order to just two linguini vongoles, a salad that everyone shared - and not two but one pizza - with no apparent feelings of the lack. At Estivo, instead of each of us getting one serving, we shared two servings among the four.

Sunday, T didn't have the heart to wake them again - so it was just the two of us, doing the six - before breakfast and before an intensive Mandarin session. And at lunch, instead of parking right where we were going to eat - we parked two malls away - and walked through Raffles City and Citilink to Marina Square for lunch, and then walking back. C even reminded us to take the stairs instead of the escalators so we worked harder. And as all the books advise, we kept dinner light - just soups at the Kopitiam in VeloCity.

Onward ho.

What to do with kids on break

As a kid, I adored summer. I adored having nothing to do. Having the days stretch out endlessly before me. And even on days when the heat and the boredom got to be too much - even on a day that was merely, okay, not bad, not particularly good - just fine - I was glad to go to sleep that night and think of the possibilities of the next day.

These days, parents - and most especially parents who work - struggle to fill their kids summer days. It goes against their grain to think of their kids just whiling time away. And maybe there is a point to piano lessons, tae kwon do and kumon - but not every single hour of every single day needs to be filled to the brim. What parents don't realise, is the more they fill their children's summer days, the more their children will come to them on a day that you left empty on purpose and say the words you dread to hear -"Mom, we're bored."

So what are you going to do? Here's what K aged 9 and C aged 8 have been doing...

• Reading. After reading them the first chapter of the first Harry Potter book out loud - hoping to spend pleasant evenings reading them till we all finished the book together as, I am probably one of the last remaining adults who hasn't read JK Rowling. Guess what? I still am. When I got home from work two days later, they had each finished the book!
• Music. K and C can sing Beatles hits. They enjoy karaoke. And quite recently, we introduced them to Broadway soundtracks. First one song. Than another. Then they listen to the entire show and try to figure out the story, till they know the songs by heart. They started with Wicked. They like Fiddler on the Roof...and are now infatuated by Grease. Next up: Into the Woods.
  
• Technology. With some very basic knowledge K picked up from school on how to use Powerpoint, she taught her brother. Now they sit and make Powerpoint presentions together - mostly about the things they've been doing.
  
• Cooking. They found a recipe for a witches' spell in a book they have. They called me at work to ask me to bring home ..."...these four items...Mom, okay? Bring home, these four items" so they could whip up a magic potion made from fizzy lemonade, sherbet powder and food colouring.

There will be more great discoveries, I'm certain. And while formal lessons and extra curricular activities are all well and good, it's also good to leave some time open - truly open. This ought not time in which they can veg out in front of the TV or play video games, but free time. Real time. Because in real time, they can do..real things.

The way to go...

Here's the way you're supposed to do it. You're supposed to know yourself. And when you know yourself, you will discover what you want. And by the way, it's not enough to know what you don't want - because anyone knows that. You need to know what it is you want to do and what you want out of life. But also...what is it that you want to bring to life, to the people you love, and to the world at large.

And it may be that you have to start from absolute scratch. It may well be that you have to start getting to know yourself all over again.

Plans

It's always can't-go-to-sleep exciting to plot the hows and how-tos of a big plan. Plans are empowering and all personal projects are buouyed beautifully by an energy that seems as vast as the sky. And it is nice how everything else in life at once seems d0-able, manageable, and strangely enough, irresistible... in light of all that you imagine - no, that you plan will come to pass in the not all that faraway future.

Non-sequitur: my kasin J's gift of The Rhythm of Life by Matthew Kelly is surprisingly engaging. It's even made me go out and buy a copy to send home to L and M (why nath?) That's the thing about J. Packaged in rose-coloured sweetness that may seem to strangers like pure sap is an unmistakably steely, glinting coolness.

20 days

There's the flurry of preparing for a holiday - packing, shopping for pasalubong, and of course, clearing away work so that a block of time is created in which you can freely holiday. There's the holiday itself, which is always goes faster and seems shorter than you thought it would be. And finally there's the holiday aftermath - the mulling over of the things that you did and the things that you should have done as well as the new perspective that every trip home gives you. The holiday afermath also involves finally, grappling with the pile of work that accumulated in the time that you were away. All three stages which, in this particular case took the better part of 2o days, can impede even the things you consider important.

Like blogging for instance.

Realisation: It's a wondeful thing to take a trip home - but it's just as wonderful to come back...home.

Countdown to vacation: 10 days

Sometimes...

...you get into a cab and after a minute, you realise something's not quite right with the cabbie. Nothing you can put your finger on. Just something that's not quite right. Something unsettling that you can imagine may quite easily grow into something untoward, unseemly...something that, let's face it, you just don't want any part of.

Then again, you think maybe you're overreacting. Maybe you're wrong. Maybe it's just you and how you tend to be dramatic and jump to conclusions. Maybe...but what if it's not?

Do you get off? Even though you haven't reached your intended destination? Or do you ignore the feeling and hope it passes...because after all, you really do want to get where you want to go?

joke

Two cows are in a field. One says, "Moo."
The other cow says, "Hey - I was going to say that!"

Family Tip: 7 The Shouting Can

T and I strive to be contemporary and progressive in are parenting. The result is we have very raised unique individuals. They have a sense of humor. They feel free to share their point-of-view. In turn, we try to be honest with them. As much as we can, we explain the way things are. They are creative and expressive. Perhaps too expressive. With a flair for the dramatic, which I am afraid they have inherited from their mother. All this is good for the most part, but sometimes, it's not. Sometimes, when such children don't get their way, they go into histrionics - rabble-rousing rage at the top of their voices. And what's particularly discomfitting for parents who believe themselves contemporary and progressive - is hearing echoes of themselves in these temper tantrums.

So this evening, we came up with The Shouting Can. Essentially, we're talking about a receptacle for penalty tithes. Children who are caught shouting in anger or in an uncontrollable rage will (after they have calmed down sufficiently) be asked to give up 20 cents of their own pocket money. Adults will be tithed a dollar.

Yes, I will own: The Shouting Can - is as much for the mother as it is for the children.

JollyBBQ

There's no reason why this shouldn't work - the right location, across from Novena Church - to capture the throngs of yayas and indays looking for a good old Pinoy lunch. At the same time, it's got parking and is fairly close to the Newton MRT for those who don't have the time or the wherewithall to cook their own liempo, pork barbecue or salpicao. Why, when all it costs for a satisfying plate is $4.50? The name is genius - mining the brand recall and equity of the giant at home. And then there's the food itself. The serving of rice is more than generous, if a tad on the moist side. It's true though that I am of the extreme prediliction, preferring rice on the drier, more mabuhaghag side. Also, I found I would have preferred the pusit more inihaw than pusit -- drier -- more like Cafe Ilonggo, all blackened and toasty on the edges. But maybe that's just me. There also ought to be a fish dish - if not danggit or bangus, maybe inihaw na tilapia?

I wish the Atenean entreps more power and great success. It's clear that Pinoy cuisine must work it's way up, rather than down, at least in this particular market - but there's certainly no reason why JollyBBQ shouldn't be phenomenal.

Sunday night blues

The tummy feels nervy. Am not sure how to play this day, nor the next. And am hoping I'll be able to get up for the track. In the meantime, every fibre of my being is saying - can't I just stay home?

I may as well be in fifth grade again.

Where do they get it?

At last Sunday's picnic, I introduced K to M's mother.
K: Hello! (then under her breath almost as if to herself) The resemblance is amazing...

Today, at the Singapore Children's Choir concert, C settled down in his seat, leaned back and closed his eyes. Then he murmured:
C: Music soothes the savage beast...

These kids are just marvelous - and they're mine.

Now, that's a superhero movie

Next with Nicolas Cage, Julianne Moore and Jessica Biel, written by Philip K. Dick is a modern superhero tale, and very much worth its 1 hour and 30 minutes. At once fresh and inventive, the flick is a great casting of Cage - in fact, I can't think of another actor who could have done it as well as he did. Like all superheroes, Cage's Chris Thompson has that slightly tortured, manic look that should, if you think about it, be on all superheroes' faces - if superheroes were real people, that is.
It's also a pretty clever super power, when you think about it...a two minutes' headstart after all has great potential in what can be achieved...

It's been awhile since I've had the pleasures of sheer storytelling alone - but I did during Next. Even before I was halfway through the movie, I wanted to clap my hands. Clearly, it has been too long.

Another loop

I am thrown by...
Why is it that if it isn't one thing, it's another. Why does it seem like other people live placid, pleasant lives in their day to day, where their ebb and flow is regular without these jolts and jerks. Emphasis on the latter. Must treat it like yoga. Breathe through it. Accept it and try to move on...

Speaking of which, next week is the week that I must get to yoga.

Great Books To Read Children aged 7-10

• The Voyages of Dr. Dolittle by Hugh Lofting
• The Story of Dr. Dolittle by Hugh Lofting
  
• Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher
• The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by CS Lewis
• The Magician's Nephew by CS Lewis
• Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery
• Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume
• Superfudge by Judy Blume
  

Raising a girl

When I found out I was pregnant with a girl, the very first thought that occured to me was that I could read her all my favourite books. When K turned nine, I started her off with Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher. And just recently, we finished the Canadian classic LM Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables, which is still just as good as it ever was. We finished the book yesterday, me reading aloud and K oohing and aahing and gasping beside me. And tonight, we're watching the mini-series.

If only it were that easy to find a book to read for to C...

Weird sensation

It started over the weekend, and unfortunately, has continued on to today, possibly to tomorrow. Exhaustion like a pile of rocks. Energy in the negatives. Fatigue that comes from nothing but more fatigue. And not even the strength to do the most elementary of tasks. What is this?

Non-sequitur: got a call from one of my oldest friends over the weekend. It's amazing that despite great distance, gaps in time and psyche...it is still possible to laugh at just precisely those kinds of things you used to laugh at together.

Recollecting that weekend moment was a comfort in all this wretched hormonal weirdness.

Two books

We popped by Page One at Vivo City, and I succumbed to a book purchase - actually two.

I was first acquainted with Jamaica Kincaid's work back in Bowling Green. One of my dearest friends there JM was doing her dissertation on women expatriate writers - Jean Rhys and Jamaica Kincaid. She introduced me to Lucy. Not many people I know like Kincaid - she's rather an acquired taste, apparently, but I did. And I do. When she writes, it's like she doesn't care about what the readers might think - like she is writing to please herself first, and the reader, a distant second. It seems to me that this is a good thing - a freeing thing - to be able to just put it out there - bahala na. And she has a very unusual way of expressing herself - it's both modern and antiquated at the same time.

During the first six months of my marriage, I was living in Ann Arbor, and JM, who was still plugging along on her Phd back in BG, an hour and a half away, called me and said Jamaica was coming to the UofM and we must see her. So we did. We heard her read in the Hopwood Room in Rackham Hall. And it was just wonderful. She was wonderful. It was a wonderful day.

Back in my twenties, I couldn't put my finger on all of this, but now it seems I understand it more - she just goes on her own with sentences that sort of go slowly slowly slowly and then build to so much more than the thought she initially wanted to express. Today I bought Among Flowers: A Wlak in the Himalaya, a memoir about how she and two botanists went seed gathering in the Himalayas.

And the second book? The second book seems like it's going to be a lark An 84-year old woman has written about the best summer of her life back in 1944 in New York. I am hoping that Summer at Tiffany by Marjorie Hart will be just what it promises: easy reading pleasure.

Italian tuna

M called for a picnic tomorrow at Botanic Gardens. Am bringing the ubiquitous cheese sticks...but also lots of triangle sandwiches. For some reason, I've come to see picnic sandwiches as triangle sandwiches, not square. And I'm thinking not about the usual tuna and mayo, but something that I learned about in New York in the early nineties: Italian tuna.

Back then, I was what they call an executive floater - an adminstrative assistant working on the very top floor of 1 Dag Hammerskjold Plaza, I occupied a little corner room the size of a small closet in the office of the President, where I was the second in command, working for a genial man named Spencer P-, whose main secretary, a lovely woman named Judy H- is still the best boss I've ever had in all my 17 jobs - mostly because she was always sending me home. "Go home, there's nothing to do. Enjoy the day". "Go home. It's not rocket science. Do it tomorrow." The words were music to my ears.

My job consisted of doing any typing and correspondence Judy gave me to do. I was also in charge of keeping Mrs. P informed of her husband's daily and weekly itinerary. And then I was in charge of running down to Market Street, the wonderful deli across the street to pick up lunch. I have vivid memories of Mr. P concocting his lunchtime sandwich on the fly, seemingly random and off the top of his head...

"I'll have tuna...with... hmmm....sun-dried tomatoes...maybe a slice of provolone cheese. Oh and onions and some romaine... on a white, no...an Italian roll," he would say. By the time he got to the end, my mouth would be watering. I'd say, "That sounds delicious." He'd say, "Get yourself one , too, Noelle." And then later in the afternoon, I'd receive word to put the whole thing on his expense account. Naks...

When I moved to SMP, I worked for a man named Ed S- and we worked in the Flatiron building. I would also get him his lunch. He was much less imaginative. He always got tuna. And I would get sick of it for him. So one day, I gave him Mr. P's tuna - which I noticed was already premixed in the deli nearby. Italian tuna, it said. Complete with the bits of sun-dried tomatoes although sadly, no provolone.

"My tuna was different today. What was that?" Ed S- asked me.
"Italian tuna." I told him, half-afraid he would scold me for doing the switch.
"Great. Loved it."

So tomorrow, we're going to have Italian tuna... after all, what's not to love?

Kiddie adventures in food

In an effort to get the kids away from their "regulars" of burgers and pizza, we have designated Friday evenings as food adventure night. The idea is on these evenings, we acquaint the children with other cuisines in an effort to broaden their food landscape. In the last few weeks, we have taken them for Turkish food, Japanese food that's not sushi. And last night, Friday, we took them for an Indian dinner. It was quite a ruse, because the kids have been resisting Indian food from the beginning - for reasons we are not quite clear about. So I simply didn't tell them where we were going. When we got there, we ordered according to their likes: fish tikka, butter chicken, dhal, nan bread, white rice and papadums - forgoing the curry and the vindaloo that T and I usually favour.

Today, after the Bishan run, we went to Graffiti Cafe for the Malaysian Pontian wanton mee. If I had to describe it, it's sort of like spaghetti. The noodles are in this tomato based sauce, topped with barbecue char shiew pork, three fried wantons, dark green qing tsai veggies, chicharon and chili with steaming bowl of wanton soup on the side. Yoda from the office introduced me to this, and I had taken T to previously. But I thought the kids might like it. How could they not like $2 pork noodles with fried wanton?

In the end, we asked them to rank which adventures they liked best, in order of preference:

K - Turkish, Japanese, Malaysian wanton mee, Indian
C- Japanese, Turkey, Indian, Malaysian wanton mee

Next week, we take them either to Boat Quay for Nasi Padang on banana leaves. Or to the Waterloo street hawker centre for Nasi Padang. Let the adventure continue...

BishRUN park

You can get a good run at Bishan Park even though you might start out too late in the morning. It can be a sunny morning, but the trees and the green give you a lot of shade, and you can actually make it round the 2.5 km stretch, which takes you winding about green patches, fields, and groves of trees. Yes, even at the scorching hot hour of 10:30. We rented bycicles for K and C, and T and I set off a good deal behind them, zipping away on nothing but sneaker power. The goal was modest - just to keep running without stopping for the entire park. And I would have made it too, except I had to stop to untangle C's bike chains. Next time, we will start out earlier.

Out of the mouths of babes

K: C, don't be so aggressive. Mom, C is being aggresive!
C: I'm not being aggressive; I'm being fun-loving.

A good day

I had worked through lunch in the office for the past four days, so it was nice to be able to step out. Went for Nasi Padang at the hawker centre on Waterloo Street and learned that Nepalese food is just like Nasi Padang, minus the sweet viands and about two times more chili. Then we even had time to go to Ngee Ann for Japanese gelato, which I know doesn't sound good, but it is.

The nicest thing about that spate of eating with the designers in the office is that they keep turning up yummy things to eat. The other day, someone went to get He Mee (Hokkien for prawn noodles) for all of us. It was just two dollars per bowl but boy, was it to die for. Prawns, some greens, noodles and lots of chili. The other specialty of this stall was laksa, but I only eat that once a year. Some amazing people actually had both - he mee to start, and laksa as the main course. Scary.

Left the office at the decent hour of 6:30, and treated myself to a wander-about through the shops of Paragon, while waiting for T. Had forgotten all about Giordano Ladies. But I was sensible and refrained from knee-jerk impulse buys.

Tomorrow the merry-go-round starts again. It's idea-churning time.

Production

In gradeschool, we put out this three page leaflet in dark and heavy newsprint via the cranky old mimeograph machine. It was called The Montessori Voice and I recall being asked to draw directly on the stencil to "fill the white space". As a highschool freshman, I joined and then, we worked with an actual press. But they did all the hard stuff. The typesetting, the blueprints. All we really had to do was proofread, and a literary magazine stuffed with adolescent poetry, 200-word personal essays that we would call short stories and half a dozen illustrations done meticulously with a 1.2 tech pen - this is easy proofreading. In my senior year, I was editor for The Theresian, which we combined with the senior year book. I forget whose brilliant idea that was. But the results, as I recall them, were less than impressive as all the pictures were in black and white, and the press failed to get the contrast. We made dozens of penned corrections on the blueprint - and as an echo of my childhood, I did a small, impromptu illustration to fill up some rather awkward white space.

My one-off freshman year at the University of Michigan exposed me to The Daily. A university paper that actually came out every day - it boggled my mind. How did the editors study? Returning to the Ateneo, I joined the The Guidon. Back then, I was just a writer and I recall feeling tremendously relieved even then that I did not have to do anything but file my story. Yes, one was enough for a rather thin, bimonthly newspaper. Of course, calling it a newspaper was putting it kindly. And production - or rather "press work" - consisted of my merely dropping by to "help" check blueprints - and that consisted of rather cursory proofreading as the entire exercise was merely an occasion to hang out and flirt.

These days, we do production inhouse. We line-edit, copy-edit and manipulate both the texts and the visuals onscreen. Oddly enough, we still encounter the problems of awkward white space but there are any number of ways to address these in the suite of items called design. Because it's all computerised on In Design, a powerful programme devised and customised for the magazine business, there is no longer any typesetting. Instead we copy-edit by cutting and fitting text and controlling its shape on the page. And we give the files directly to the printer in batches of four pages called "signatures". All that's left for them to do is the final art on photos and getting the colours right. The physical shaping of the text - literally the way words and sentences are lined up on the page - that's all done inhouse.

My preference is to imitate the old-fashioned typewriter. I hate right-justified text and the ugly, irregular spaces it causes. Not to mention, I hate the way I have to try to fill those spaces with short words, or rewrite the sentence in such a way that everything fits nicely. What's wrong with the hyphen, I have been known to whine plaintively. Why does the hyphen have to be edited out of existence when it has a real purpose?

And then there are those beastly orphans and widows - the copyeditor's work is all about killing the orphans and widows. I keep forgetting which is which. But there should be no single word at the bottom of any paragraph - there should be at least two words, ideally three. And there should be final line of a paragraph starting a new column leg. Likewise no first line of a paragraph on the last line of a column leg. Who decided these rules, I'd like to know.

The work of a sub-editor is thankless. In the end, nobody is going to care about orphans or widows - they can all go live together in a paper house for all you care. Nobody will see how you magically rewrote an eight word sentence containing three three-syllable words so that it would not cause a blasted orphan or widow. Nobody counts the seconds it took you to copyfit a four page story so that it still offered the essence. And even an error - which will be pointed out to you by many of course, no fear, and for which you will feel badly about for a disproportionately long time - will very quickly pass into oblivion.

But in the late hours of the night, when it's just you and a designer and maybe an obliging writer who offered to help process a seemingly insurmountable amount of pages before the next working day, there is a joyful sense of cameraderie that lends some ease and some much needed hilarity. In fact, there is likely too much hilarity ensuing likely from too much coffee, coca-cola, chocolate, cigarettes because everything seems funny.

But as much as the work is tedious and painstaking, it's also pleasurable in a strange way. There are moments, especially at night, when you feel a kind of brilliance. When all that shoddy overmatter is cleared and spanking new pages emerge, neat as pins and gleaming like jewels.

Of course, it could just be lack of sleep.

Sleeping with the kids

Letting the kids camp in my room while T is away, and my only thought is, Why didn't I do this before?

Bee Gees Night with the Idols

Two good choice songs from Melinda. Only one from Jordin in Run to Me - Woman in Love isn't what I would consider a great Bee Gees song. If I had to pick from the Streisand album, I would have gone with Starting Over but of course, it's a duet. What about Emotion by Samantha Sang? I would have picked (naks, kaps...) Words and How Deep Is Your Love, which I still can't believe nobody sang. That's the all time greatest Bee Gees song.

What would you have chosen?

Prior to flying solo for the week...

...we managed to have a full weekend anyway. Friday night, we scooted home for dinner with K and C - homemade burgers, the can't-be-beat beet coleslaw with lignan oil and lemon, plus oven crisp fries. We hung out with them long enough to find out what happened in school that day and read them a couple of stories, something they still enjoy, although they have long been able to read by themselves. Then we hied off to Vivo City to see Spiderman 3 with the Fs.

Aside: I though Spiderman 3 was terrible, by the way: long and unwieldy and all-over-the-place plotwise. Its flaw lies primarily in the screenplay which felt like a very, very rough draft - actually, it felt like it was being written by the actors as they went along. I felt like the screenwriter was passing off outright telling as characterisation - in fact, it was all telling, no showing at all. Then halfway through, they tried to go campy - and seemed to be striking flat notes all the way through. If you're camp, you're camp - and you have no business going into a moral - unless the moral is also camp. It was surreal. Plus Kristen Dunst - I'm sorry, but I really feel she peaked at Interview with a Vampire. Toby McGuire has fared better, but no great shakes here, either. They even looked like they were floundering. Exasperated and fatigued, I allowed myself to nap - not once but multiple times - and each time, I was like Are we still here? But enough of this rant. Maybe I'm pushing 4o and I'm too old for superheroes. Then again, I loved the X-men.

Saturday morning, T showed us his new digs at One Raffles Place, then we took the MRT to City Hall and ambled through Citilink to Suntec to eat Turkish food - doner lamb kebab and pide bread...taking a nice long amble back. When we finally got home, there was just enough time to get dressed for Catechism and Choir practice for 6pm mass. Choir was lots of fun...and if J and A have anything to do with it, it will be fun for a long time. On the agenda: at least one Pinoy English song from JMM for each mass that we sing. Should be good. Then it was home for calamares cooked two ways - adobo and prito, layguls and fruity agar agar. Lots of episodes from House 3.

Sunday, bright and early, we crammed our vocabulary words for Mandarin, right before Lao Shi appeared. Then lunch at my old haunt Bongout - an eating spot that was hotly contested by the kids, and then later they were pleased by it. K had the pan-fried beef, and C had shoyu ramen with pork and they gobbled it up like greedy goblins. Then there was nothing left but errands at Great World and then home to help T pack, or in my case, whine and mope. He left at 6:30...and we had pizza to cheer ourselves up.

For the week ahead - we're closing, so likely there will be late nights. I'm also letting the kiddies camp in our room, in the hope that I will be able to sleep better. Tomorrow, a girls' night out then dinner with M from Ann Arbor on Tuesday. Mandarin on Thursday and maybe I'll take the kiddies to see a movie Friday night at Great World, if there's something appropriate.

We shall see.

You gotta love em...

Parenthood

The hardest job I've ever had.

May Day

Everyone was game about breakfast out - so after some expected dilly-dallying, we were off for eggs, bacon, rosti and pancakes courtesy of Cedele. Then it was to Borders, to Cross Com, the school bag store at Forum. Then all the way to Marina Square, where K finally settled on the same more affordable school bag that C got. We were home by 12:30, and each went to his or her own puttering. T surfing and prepping for the trip. Me with the paper and Tom Plate's Confessions of an American Media Man, which is surprisingly engaging. C switched on Ninja Turtles and K played Penguin. Must confess that there was a bit of napping taking place, too, at least where T and I were concerned. At 3:30. we had a shamefully late lunch of tuna dressed with lignan oil, onions and sun-dried tomatoes in toasted wholemeal pita pockets, lettuce, pickles, coleslaw with beats, and a lovely bean soup. Then we were off to L for a long awaited massage - while K and C did Kumon in the reading room. When we emerged at six, there was time to toss the frisbee and kick the ball before heading home for baths and bistek dinner.Unfortunately, no exercise, but tomorrow is another day.

The Travelling T

After more than a decade of work in one place with travel taking place, at most, only two or three times a year, T is finding a change of pace in his current job, and by extension, so am I. Contrary to what it might seem, I am very much the ninny, unfortunately, when it comes to temporary marital separations. Apart from the accompanying anxiousness and missing, this is also largely due to the fact that I have an exceedingly difficult time sleeping alone.

But there's nothing to do except make the best of it.

Last week, T had a week-long three city trip through Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok. Next week, it's to be seven days in London. I, on the other hand, have bought Elizabeth Gaskell's Wives & Daughters and am saving Rome and House 3 for next week's daily evening viewing. And it's also closing week at the office. Onward ho.